


Hourly Rate

by gunslingaaahhh



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: AU, Gen, Kid!Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-18
Updated: 2011-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-24 23:24:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunslingaaahhh/pseuds/gunslingaaahhh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kono is forced to babysit, hilarity ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hourly Rate

Like most mornings, Kono had gone out to catch a few waves before heading into work. She didn’t mind being the only one there so early, sometimes; she liked the quiet in the offices as she put coffee on, got a head start on paperwork, powered everything up.

Occasionally Steve would be there super early, too, but more often than not he wasn’t, catching a ride with Danny instead. Shaking her head and smiling a little, she lets herself into the main bull-pen and notices that the lights are still on in Steve’s office.

 _T_ _hat’s a little weird_ , she thinks as she walks over, _Steve is such a stickler about shutting everything off_. The office is empty, but it doesn’t seem to have been empty for very long, as there is paperwork and coffee cups and other things strewn about the desk. It looks like someone just left, and in a hurry, because some of the paper is on the floor.

Sighing and rolling her eyes, Kono lets herself into the office, intent on straightening it up at least a little, when something comes charging out from under Steve’s desk.

A completely unlady-like shriek looses itself from Kono’s throat as she jumps back, hands up to protect her face against the… whatever it is that just tried to get the drop on her.

“Who are you? Where am I? What’s going on?” a tiny voice demanded.

Kono – who hadn’t realized her eyes were squeezed shut – peered around her hands and did a double-take; there was a child in Steve’s office. A scrawny, wild-haired, _angry_ child. She stared, unsure of how to even begin to proceed, because seriously, how does that even happen? But then she notices the kid isn’t exactly wearing clothes, he’s got what looks like one of Steve’s t-shirts maneuvered around his waist like some kind of kilt.

“Um… my name is Kono… what’s your name?” she asks, getting slowly down onto one knee.

“Steve,” the boy says distractedly, looking around the office, eyes searching. “I woke up here.”

“Did you?” Kono replies, amazed at how calm she sounds. Her brain is whirring, trying to figure out what the hell happened, who she should call first, what she’s going to do—there is a ringing suddenly, what sounds like Steve’s phone. Eyes widening, Kono frantically searches for it before discovering it beneath a pile of Steve’s clothes. The incoming call is from Danny.

“Danny?”

“… Kono? Holy crap, Kono, where is Steve, this is totally his fault—“

“Danny, whoa… what happened to your _voice?_ ” Kono asks, bewildered. Danny sounds all of ten years old over the phone, and no less pissed off.

“What happened to my voice, she says—Kono, I am standing in my living room and do you know what? I can’t reach the coffee maker. I can’t reach the bathroom sink. I am also willing to bet that if I went outside and into my car, there is no way I’d be able to reach the pedals.”

“Did you… oh crap, Danny, are you a—are you a kid? Because I just got to the office and I think Steve got turned into a kid, too.”

At the mention of his name, Steve turns his attention back to her, staring first with confusion, then with realization and finally with panic.

“Kono, I’m a kid! I’m a kid I’m a kid I’m a kid!”

“Yeah Steve, I noticed, just… try to calm down, ok? Danny is a kid too, evidently… oh, fuck me,” she stops, smacking her forehead with her palm. The boys had all been together the day before, working on some lead while she was working on something else. The chances were good that whatever did this to Steve and Danny probably did it to Chin, too.

“What’s the matter,” comes Danny’s shrill voice over the receiver.

“Nothing, I’m just thinking all three of you guys are in the same boat… ok, I’m gonna hang up with you and deal with Steve and then—“

“What?! No, don’t you dare, don’t you _even_ —“

“Shh, Danny, relax; as soon as I’ve got a plan together, I will come and get you, ok? Just sit tight for now.”

She hangs up before his high pitched shrieking can make her any more deaf than she already is, and turns her attention back to Steve, who looks like he’s caught between laughing, crying, and puking.

“I don’t know how this happened,” Steve says, in that too-small voice. He looks genuinely scared, and Kono has to remind herself that once upon a time, Steve was just a little kid with little kid fears.

“We’re gonna figure it out, ok? I think the three of you need to be together, though, so I can get an idea of what the hell you even did. Although…” she pauses, biting at her bottom lip and giving Steve a once over. “I can’t very well be seen in public with three barely-dressed little boys. You guys need clothes or something for now at least… ok, I’m gonna run some quick errands, I will be right back—“

She is cut off as Steve runs into her, throwing his spindley arms around her middle and squeezing. He’s shaking a little, but she can’t tell if its because he’s cold in the air-conditioned room or because he’s genuinely frightened.

“I… don’t leave me alone,” he says, looking up at her and wow, talk about puppy-dog eyes magnified by, like, a hundred. There’s no way she can say no to that.

“Ugh, jeez, ok… but at least put a t-shirt on or something. It’ll probably be too big, but at least you’ll be covered up.”

Digging through the drawers of his desk, she manages to find one unopened package of plain white cotton tees, which she tugs down over his head before grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him along behind her. Luckily because of the early hour, the building is still more or less deserted; no one sees her leave with a small child, buckled into the backseat of her car.

~*~

“Wal-mart, seriously? My mom _never_ bought me clothes from Wal-mart,” Steve grumbles as he hurries along beside her, taking twice as many steps for every one of Kono’s. It’s weird, since she often has to hurry to keep up with him.

“Sorry, brah, it’s the only place open this early, and might I remind you that I am buying you clothes? Clothes are expensive, Wal-mart is cheap, deal with it.”

Kono is sure they look outrageously suspicious, even though there is barely anyone shopping that early. After all, they look nothing alike, so it isn’t as if they could be mistaken for mother and son, or even brother and sister. That, and Steve is still practically naked beneath his t-shirt, as well as barefoot.

“Ah, here we go… what the hell size are you even?” she mutters as she kneels in front of the boy’s clothes. She grabs a bunch of stuff and holds it up in front of him before sucking her teeth and putting it back.

“Lemme do it, I’ll find something,” Steve says, annoyance creeping into his voice as he marches into the clothing racks. Heaving a sigh, Kono lets him go, worrying about what the hell sizes mini-Danny and mini-Chin are.

Eventually Steve returns with a pair of cargo pants – of course – an Iron Man t-shirt, socks, underwear, and a pair of sneakers. Impressed, Kono follows him back over to where he’d found everything, and uses his selections as a guide for the rest. They quickly pay and Kono rushes Steve to the car, where he changes before they tear out of the parking lot towards Danny’s apartment.

“They are gonna be _so_ jealous of my shirt,” Steve is chirping in the backseat, and Kono has all she can do to not laugh. “Iron Man is so much cooler than the Green Lantern _and_ The Flash.”

“Just don’t start any fights, ok?” she asks as she pulls into a spot, killing the ignition. “And don’t make fun of him, either, you’re both in the same boat, try to help each other out.”

There is a noncommittal noise as they ascend the stairs to Danny’s unit. The door is still locked, which she expected. She knocks a few times and eventually hears a child’s voice call out to wait, before the door swings open.

“What took you so long?! Unlike some people, I’d like to be able to _get dressed_ ,” Danny says angrily. Kono can’t take him seriously though, not with that crazy blonde hair and his scrunched little face.

“Sorry, I had to pit-stop to get you guys some size-appropriate duds,” Kono supplies, holding up the bag. “Unless you are _also_ too good for Wal-mart, in which case you can spend the rest of the day wearing a towel.”

The expression on Danny’s face is priceless as he grabs for the bag. She holds it just out of reach, digging around until she finds the stuff that is supposed to fit him. In an instant he’s in and out of the bathroom, looking much better now that he is clothed.

“Sorry, Danno, they don’t make your clothes in kid sizes,” Steve says, grinning.

“No, but they make clothes for idiot super-SEALs, don’t they? Nice cargo pants, doofus.”

“I’ll show you a doofus—“

“Boys!” Kono shouts, slightly horrified by how ‘mom-ish’ she sounds. “We don’t have time for this, we need to go get Chin.”

“Watch, he’s probably just fine; this kinda thing _never_ happens to him, only me.”

“Um hi, it happened to me too, _doofus_ ,” Steve says, little eyebrows furrowing angrily.

“Sure, but only because this entire thing is probably your fault, _moron_.”

“I am not—Kono! Danny called me a moron!” Steve yells, pointing a finger in Danny’s general direction. Staring with disbelief, Kono isn’t sure whether to scream or laugh.

“Really, with the tattling? I’m _right here_ , I heard him. Get in the car, both of you, right now, before I have to get mean.”

They do, grumbling over who gets to sit in front until Kono – loudly – announces that no one is riding shotgun, they can both sit in the back. She turns the radio on almost immediately, hoping it will be distracting enough. The boys aren’t acknowledging each other, just looking out their respective windows. If she had to guess, she’d bet they were about nine or ten years old, which was way better than them being turned into infants or toddlers or something. God, no way would she had been able to deal with _that_.

~*~

Chin’s bike is still parked neatly in front of his house, and Kono secretly hopes he _is_ fine, because dealing with Steve and Danny like this just isn’t something she can handle alone.

The disappointment she feels when a child-version of Chin opens the door is immense, but she quickly throws the bag of clothes at him and tells him to meet her at the car when he’s done.

“How come I have to be Green Lantern?” he asks almost as soon as he sees Danny and Steve’s shirts. “Green Lantern is _lame_.”

“Lame? I’m _The Flash_ , what’s so cool about that?” Danny mumbles indignantly, plucking at the fabric of his shirt with distaste.

“The Flash,” Kono starts, loudly in the hopes of getting their attention, “has the pretty cool super-power of being _super_ fast. He can be here and back in, like, less than a second. He just whips around no big deal, _and_ he’s pretty funny.”

Danny is quiet, considering this before nodding. Kono breathes a sigh of relief before turning around in her seat and looking at Chin, who is still waiting for an answer.

“The Green Lantern isn’t just one guy, it’s a bunch of guys, a team of people with cool super-powers; they can all do different things, and then they’re together they’re pretty much unstoppable,” she says, wracking her brain for everything she might’ve learned from Saturday morning cartoons.

“Can I be the boss, then?” Chin asks, smiling a little. “It’d be cool to be the boss Green Lantern.”

“Sure you can,” Kono says, softly, smiling back at him. Steve is regarding them all like they’ve grown extra heads, secure in the knowledge that Iron Man is, in fact, the coolest.

“OK, so here’s the part where you guys tell me what the hell you were doing yesterday that this even happened.”

Three blank faces stare back at her, and she waits to see who is going to break first. Her money is on Danny, who is squirming in his seat.

“It was all Steve’s fault!” he blurts suddenly, blue eyes wide in his face. “The guy told us not to touch the thing but he did it anyway, he touched it and the guy _freaked_ , he got so mad and he started yellin’ and I couldn’t understand what he was sayin’—“

“What the heck, Danny?!” Steve cuts in shrilly, leaning around Chin – who was unfortunate enough to end up seated between them – to yell more effectively. “It wasn’t my fault, ok, I didn’t _mean_ to touch it, it was an _accident_ ,” Steve says, turning his gaze on Kono. Her breath catches in her throat when she sees tears begin to form in his eyes.

“Nuh-uh, you just made it _look_ like one,” Chin says matter-of-factly. “I saw you. You stood next to the table the thing was on and you bumped it, so it would fall over and you’d have to catch it. Not an accident, on purpose,” he finishes, giving Kono a look of ‘do you see what I have to deal with.’

Danny whoops at that, high-fiving Chin. Steve folds his arms across his chest and slumps down in his seat, not looking at anyone and trying really hard to make it look like he isn’t ready to cry.

Kono has to turn around and face forward, trying to digest this. Three-fourths of her team have been reduced to children, and while they are aware of who they are and what they do, they are very much so acting like the children they have become. It isn’t a curse she’s heard of, and that worries her. Calling a family member probably isn’t going to help this time, although she makes a mental note to try anyway. Taking a deep breath, she starts the car and pulls out of Chin’s driveway.

“This is the deal—are we listening?” she says, remembering how her parents would often talk to her and her cousins when they were little. Three sets of eyes focus in on the rearview mirror and she knows she’s gotten their attention. “I highly doubt any of you have really eaten breakfast, I certainly haven’t, so we’re gonna make a stop and get some food. I am willing to discuss where we have this food, I am even willing to let us eat inside, _but_ if anyone misbehaves we are leaving and that person doesn’t get to have any fun for the rest of the day, got it?”

Three little faces nod in unison, all wide-eyed seriousness. Feeling a little bit more like she has some control, Kono drives them to the first place she can think of, and is relieved to hear mutterings of approval from the backseat.

It’s a local diner, a small place, not one they go to all the time and especially not all together. The likelihood of anyone seeing them and finding it strange that Kono is having a meal with three suspiciously familiar little boys is small. She manages to herd them inside and into a booth, has to reign in a small argument over which juice is better – apple, cranberry, or pineapple – before ordering everyone their own stack of pancakes.

As she picks at her own pancakes, she makes a call to a great-aunt with some experience with these things, but has no luck. Really, the clock isn’t ticking in her favor; the boys could change back right there in the diner, clothes bursting at the seams. Or, they could not turn back _ever_ , and the idea of that makes her so sick she has to push her plate away.

“Guys, listen, does anyone remember where you were when… this thing… got touched and the guy was yelling? You’re not giving me a lot to go on here.”

“I do,” Chin says, pulling out his cell phone. “I remember the address being something funny, so I had to use my GPS for us to find it, it should still be in here.” He slides the phone across the table and Kono begins clicking through it, trying not to think about where the now too-large piece of technology had been all this time. She finds the most recent one address with a little “aha!” and slaps some money down on the table, hurrying the boys back out the door and into her car.

“Kono, can I sit up front? I get motion sickness,” Danny calls from his seat by the window, feet tucked underneath so he can see around the curve of the seat.

“Umm… don’t take this the wrong way, Danno, but—“

“You’re too _little_ ,” Steve finishes for her, a wicked grin of delight on his little face. “Danny’s a little _baby_ and babies can’t sit up in the front seat. I’m not too little though, right?” he says earnestly, hands already hovering over the buckle of his seatbelt.

At first Kono is too shocked to speak, because even though they all gently rib Danny about being a short-stack, it was never mean-spirited or nasty. She then remembers that kids are cruel because they don’t have brain-to-mouth filters. Her attention turns to Danny, who is silent, just staring at Steve. His face is blank and she can’t tell what he’s thinking at all.

“I hate to say it, but Steve has a point,” she starts, wincing when Danny looks at her and she sees the hurt in his eyes. “Technically, you should be a certain weight before you sit in the front passenger seat of a car. You’d get hurt if we got into an accident, or I had to stop short, or something.”

As she’s speaking, a realization comes to her: this is something Danny knows first hand, having a child of his own, and also because it’s on the list of things police officers learn. The fact that she has to explain it to him makes her incredibly nervous; what if this curse regresses their bodies right away, but regresses their minds slowly, until they’re just kids with no recollection of anything that happened before?

Horrified, Kono guns the engine and takes off out of the parking lot, following the GPS’s instructions. She’s so focused she almost misses Steve’s whispered apology.

~*~

“What do you _mean_ you don’t know?! The other three members of my team have been reduced to a pack of nine year olds and you’re telling me you don’t know how to fix it?!” Kono has never been so furious, wants to punch the young man in front of her right in the mouth.

“I’m sorry, I’m just a curator; the person you need to speak to is Arthur Ming. He is the owner of the artifact and has been most gracious about loaning it to us.”

“Where can I find him?”

“I’m not sure I should—“

“You refuse me and I’ll arrest you for obstruction of justice,” Kono hisses through clenched teeth, fingers hovering over the butt of her gun. “I’ll arrest you for everything there is, ok? But before I do that, I’ll hand you over to _them_ ,” and she jerks her chin back towards where the rest of her team is standing. “Do you know how destructive little boys can be? You can find out first hand.”

“That won’t be necessary, here,” the man says, scribbling down the address and shoving the paper into her hand. “Just please, get out of here, those kids are freaking me out.”

Stomping past the boys and back to the car, three sets of legs scramble to catch up, little voices asking questions a mile a minute. She doesn’t answer them, just waits for them to get into the car before driving off again, grinding her teeth in frustration.

“So, we’re gonna find the guy that can fix this, right?” Danny pipes up, voice nervous. “So we can be big again? I miss being big.”

“Hopefully, yeah,” Kono replied as evenly as she could. “The artifact or whatever it is belongs to this guy, so I’m hoping he knows what curse is on it.”

“What if he doesn’t?” Steve asks, oddly solemn. “Are we gonna be stuck like this?”

“We’re not gonna talk about that, ok? You guys will be fine.”

“Promise?” Chin asks, fingers clutching at his cell phone.

“I promise.”

  
~*~

“They touch, they get what they deserve!” the old man says, outrageously bushy eyebrows wriggling across his forehead like caterpillars.

“I understand they shouldn’t have touched anything,” Kono says, trying to remain patient. “And ok, maybe they did deserve a slap on the wrist or something; I just need to know how long they’ll be like this, and if there’s anything I need to do.”

Ming shrugs, totally unfazed, and Kono really wants to just shoot him. The boys are waiting for her in the car, and she’d really like to have some good news for them when she goes back out.

“At least tell me if they’ll be stuck like this permanently.”

“No, not permanent.”

“So they will change back?”

“Eventually.”

“Are they… will they remember who they are? That they’re actually adults?”

“They should, unless they are children to begin with.”

Kono doesn’t have anything to say to that; the back-and-forth between Steve and Danny isn’t a result of an irreversible regression so much as the kiddie version of what they do every day.

“So what you’re telling me is that we’ve just got to… wait it out?”

“Take couple hours. They touched yesterday? Should be back maybe tomorrow.”

“Maybe tomorrow?”

“Could be longer, day after.”

“But tomorrow… what, afternoon, by the earliest?”

Ming just nods, already tired of her. Feeling much better, Kono thanks him profusely before practically running to the car. Her smile of triumph fades when she sees the look on Danny’s face, though; he’s practically in tears.

“Kono!” he shrieks as soon as she opens the door. “I just remembered, I’m supposed to have Grace this weekend! I’m ‘sposed to get her from school!”

Frowning, Kono just stares at him, mentally back-tracking. “Didn’t you have her last weekend, though?”

“Yeah but we had to flip-flop this one cause of a Stan thing,” Danny says, tears starting to make their way over the edges of his eyelids and into his eyelashes. “What am I gonna do? She’s expecting her Danno, not—not—“ and he promptly bursts into tears, the sound heartbreaking.

Chin and Steve squirm next to him, trying their best to be comforting but failing miserably. Getting back out of the car and coming around to Danny’s side, Kono opens the door and kneels next to him. She rubs soothingly at his back, trying to figure out how they can swing this.

“Is there no way Rachel can pick her up?” she asks softly, still rubbing his back.

“N-no,” Danny hiccups, rubbing at his eyes. “S-she had to go with him to a thing, to do a thing and we switched weekends, she can’t. Kono, she’s gonna be so s-scared,” he says, whimpering a little.

“No, it’s gonna be ok. We’ll still pick her up, ok, it’s still gonna happen. I’ll get her myself… drop you guys back at Steve’s or something, and I’ll explain it to her in the car. That way she’ll be at least a little prepared…” Kono trails off, thoughtful.

“It could work,” Danny says quietly, done crying for now. “We go to Steve’s all the time, it won’t be that weird.”

“No, I’ll make sure it isn’t weird. For now, though, we need to get some lunch into you guys and maybe make another pit-stop. Ming says you guys probably won’t be back to normal until sometime tomorrow, if not the day after.”

There is squabbling and yelling and the kiddie version of cursing as Kono gets back into the car and heads back towards HQ. Not wanting to risk drawing attention, she runs inside to grab a few things so she can do research from Steve’s before flying through a drive-thru.

“Fast-food is bad for you,” Steve calls, but Kono can see he’s practically starving, as are the other two, and thinks he’ll get over it.

The final stop is another run through Wal-mart for boy-sized swim trunks, pajamas, and toothbrushes. By the time they reach Steve’s, Kono is so exhausted she can barely stand. Checking the time, she’s got about an hour and a half before she needs to pick up Grace – plenty of time for a nap. The boys are arguing over what they want to do – swim, watch a movie, play games – and it takes a lot for her to not start yelling.

“Boys, I really need to take a powder ok, just for a little while before I go get Grace. Put a movie on for now, chill out, and when I get back maybe we can go swimming. How does that sound?”

It must sound good, because the argument turns to what movie they’re going to watch. Grace tunes them out, setting an alarm on her phone and drifting off on the couch.

  
~*~

Grace spots her almost immediately, face lighting up as she runs over.

“Hi Kono!”

“Hey, Grace! Your dad needed me to pick you up today, we’re gonna go meet up with him.”

“Oh… is he with Uncle Steve?”

“Uh, yeah, he is, and Uncle Chin, too. All at Steve’s house.”

“Can we go swimming? I’ve already got everything in my bag,” Grace says, unzipping her backpack to show Kono the contents. Kono tells her that yes, they can go swimming, but that they need to talk about something important, first. Grace’s brow furrows as she buckles herself in, an air of nervousness surrounding her.

“Am I in trouble?”

“What? No, no way! It’s just that… um… something happened, to your dad and Steve and Chin.”

“Are they ok?”

“Yeah, they’re completely fine! They just… look a little different.”

Kono is trying to properly word her explanation and drive at the same time and finding it very difficult to do so. Grace is a smart kid, she’ll be able to tell if Kono is lying to her, or sugarcoating anything. When she raises her eyes to look in the rearview mirror, Grace’s eyes are watching her, waiting.

“I don’t want you to be scared, ok, when you see them. They’re still the same, just… they look different.”

“How?”

“Um… smaller.”

“Oh,” Grace says, before falling silent for the rest of the drive back to Steve’s. Kono bites at her bottom lip and hopes this whole event won’t traumatize Grace for life.

~*~

  
There is nothing that could’ve prepared Kono for the situation she walked into upon returning to the house. All she could do was stand in the front hall and gape, eyes wide and her chin practically on her chest. Grace stands beside her, equally shocked.

It looks like a tornado blew through the place, furniture askew and things knocked off shelves. There is what sounds like water dripping, but Kono can’t even begin to consider where. What is really throwing her, though, is the _silence_. There’s no rumbling of three sets of little feet, or laughing, or even yelling. No, just total and complete silence. A lump of panic begins to form in her stomach.

Before she has a chance to do anything, though, Grace is shrugging off her backpack and walking warily into the mess. “Hello?” she calls out, a wrinkle of confusion between her brows. “Danno? Uncle Steve? Where are you guys?”

A pile of blankets and pillows in the center of the living room moves, and Kono has to resist the urge to draw her weapon. A tousled head pops out – Chin’s – and Kono heaves a sigh of relief.

“Shh, you’re gonna ruin it! He’s gonna—“

“Aha! Gotcha now!” Steve shouts, appearing out of nowhere and rushing over to slap Chin on the back. Chin grumbles and claws his way out of the pile, muttering about having the most perfect hiding spot _ever_.

“Please tell me you guys are playing hide-and-seek and no one has been seriously injured,” Kono practically begs, wringing her hands. Chin looks at her like she’s insane – nothing new there – and stomps over to the couch, where he plops down in defeat.

“Yeah, and I was totally gonna win, but then you came home and she ruined it,” he says, frowning and shooting Grace a look. Grace, for her part, seems completely unfazed, and something about that is hilarious, Kono knows it is, but she can’t be sussed to figure out what.

“You had no chance,” Steve says, just as smug as ever. “I so knew where you were the whole time. Now I just gotta find Danny—“

“Where _is_ my dad, anyway?” Grace cuts him off, putting her hands on her hips in a perfect imitation of her father. She looks from Chin to Steve and back again, tapping her foot a little. Chin at least has the wherewithal to look a little sheepish. Steve just rolls his eyes.

“He’s _hiding_ , duh, it’s _hide-and-seek_. He has the advantage, though, cause he’s so little. He can fit into all _kinds_ of good hiding places.”

Grace watches him, and Kono can see the wheels turning in her head. She slowly turns and gives Kono a critical look, one eyebrow quirking.

“When you said they were smaller, you meant they’d turned into _kids?_ ” she asks, only a little incredulous. “My dad is—my dad is a kid?”

“Um,” Kono starts, feeling that swell of panic again. “Yeah, he is, but only until tomorrow or the day after. He’s totally fine, though! Just, you know, a kid, like you.”

She waits for the meltdown she knows is coming, but Grace just shrugs before grinning, grabbing Steve by the hand – who blushes ten shades of red – and shouts “I’ll help you find him, let’s go!”

Collapsing down onto the couch next to Chin, Kono scrubs at her face with her hands.

“She seems ok with it,” Chin says, thumbs moving nimbly over the screen of his phone. “I hope she *stays* ok with it, and doesn’t have a fit later or something.”

“You and me both, brah, you and me both.”

Not even ten minutes later, there is the sound of Steve whooping with triumph and Danny whining about unfair advantages and having help. The three of them come back into the living room, all talking at once about going swimming.

“Whoa, time out there, guys! You made this mess, you need to clean it up. Everything goes back the way it was, understand?” Kono says, looking at each of the boys in turn.

“I don’t wanna!” Steve shouts, pouting.

“Believe me, Boss, you’re gonna be glad I made you do it later when you’re big again and don’t have to do it yourself. C’mon, it won’t take that long. As soon as you’re finished we’ll go out back and swim, how’s that?”

That seems to kick-start them, and even Grace helps out. Kono notices Danny watching her carefully, bottom lip caught between his teeth. After the mess is picked up, all of them but Danny go tearing off to change into swimsuits.

“Kono…”

“What’s up, Danno?”

“Grace… um… is she ok, do you think?” he asks, face painted over with worry.

“I think so, yeah. Just don’t expect her to call you ‘dad’ or anything.”

“She hasn’t yet, just ‘Danno’.”

“Go get changed so you can swim—“

“I don’t wanna swim, I hate the beach.”

“I know you do, but everyone else is going and I’d like to be able to keep an eye on all of you at the same time, if you don’t mind.”

Huffing a breath, Danny stomps off to change and Kono tries really hard not to laugh.

  
~*~

Swimming is uneventful, the four of them playing in the surf like it’s any other day and this is their life. It’s almost peaceful, Kono thinks, until she remembers all of the aggravation she’d had to go through. There was definitely going to be some reimbursement for this day, oh yes.

Steve’s fridge isn’t exactly stocked for dinner, so they order pizza and settle in for the night. Steve asks if they can all have a camp-out in the living room, since there aren’t enough beds anyway, and Kono decides that yeah, that’s a good idea. At least that way no one can get into trouble.

It’s barely eleven when Kono notices that all four of them are socked out. Unable to resist, she whips out her phone and carefully takes pictures, needing to stifle her giggles at the picture of Danny and Steve practically on top of each other.

 _Even as kids, damn_ , she thinks, grinning. _They’ve got it so bad_.

She spends another hour or so doing research on this particular curse, and discovers that Ming’s timeline is actually off – the transformation back to normal could happen as early as the next morning. Practically bouncing off the couch with relief, she contemplates what to do when it actually happens. Luckily all of them kept a spare change of clothes at HQ – some of what she’d gone in to grab when they were there earlier – so at least Danny and Chin wouldn’t have to worry about not having any clothes. However, the sight of three naked adult men probably wasn’t something Danny would want for Grace to have… sighing a little and rubbing at her eyes, Kono got up and collected Grace, pulling her onto the couch and spooning up behind her. That way, if it happened and Grace was still asleep, she could shield the little girl’s eyes.

Hours later, a muscle jumps in her back and Kono startles awake, almost knocking Grace off the couch. It’s very early in the morning, just past dawn, and a quick scan of the floor tells her the event hasn’t happened yet. There is a feeling of relief, since they’re all still in the same room, but also a feeling of worry. Things can look different after a night’s sleep, and Kono is only slightly worried how Grace is going to react in a new day.

“Hey Gracie, wake up,” she whispers, gently shaking one of Grace’s shoulders. The little girl stirs, looking at Kono blearily before sitting up a little and looking at the floor.

“Oh, so it wasn’t a dream,” she says quietly.

“No, but I looked up some more information, and it said they could change back this morning, even.”

“I hope so, I miss my Danno,” Grace murmurs, voice catching a little. Kono groans inwardly and wraps her arms around Grace, patting her back and standing up with her.

“C’mon, lets go lie down upstairs; the boys should have some privacy if they change back soon, right?” she says, trying to keep her tone light. Grace just nods, eyes wet, and follows Kono upstairs to the spare bedroom. Kono does her best to ignore the pang of guilt in her gut as they go.

~*~

Grace is out like a light almost as soon as her head touches the pillow, but Kono knows she herself won’t be able to go back to sleep. Instead, she tools around online with the laptop and tries to keep an ear out for any changes downstairs. After a while, she’s too restless to just lay there, so she gives Grace a shake, informs her that she’s going downstairs, and pads quietly out of the room.

There still no changes, and it’s almost nine. Frowning and thinking that maybe the internet had lied, Kono heads into the kitchen to see if Steve has any coffee she can make. He does, but his coffee machine looks like something out of a science fiction novel, which makes Kono wrinkle her nose a little.

She’s in the midst of trying to figure out how to change the filter when she hears a muffled thump coming from the living room. Her first instinct is to run in there, until she remembers the state of dress, and walks over slowly instead, creeping just around the corner.

“Everyone ok in there?” she calls tentatively.

“Ouch, _motherfucker_ ,” comes Danny’s gruff – and decidedly adult – voice. “Get off of me before I punch you.”

Steve must still be out of it, because his reply is something garbled. There is the sound of stumbling, a shocked gasp, and what could be the rustling of clothing. Danny finally appears around the corner, a pair of jeans on and up but unbuttoned, a t-shirt half pulled over his head.

“Grace,” he says, eyes a little wild. “Where is—“

“Guest room; she’s probably still sleeping, FYI.”

Danny doesn’t hear her, just goes tearing up the stairs, taking them two at a time and flying into the guest room. Kono stays where she is until she hears both Grace and Danny’s voices.

“Hey, you guys decent?” she calls out again. Steve grunts and Chin says something that is probably affirmative, so she risks it and walks into the living room. Chin is completely dressed and curled up on one end of the sofa, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He waves hello as Kono comes further into the room, a dazed expression on his face.

Steve is a little worse for the wear, it seems, as he appears to be only wearing the blanket he’d dragged down from his bedroom the night before. He’s got a wicked case of bed head and Kono has to cover her mouth to muffle her laughter.

“Looks like you guys are just fine,” she says, grinning.

“Emphasis on ‘looks,’” Chin replies from behind her. “I feel like I got hit by a bus.”

“Yeah, well, you think that’s bad? Imagine what _my_ day was like yesterday,” she retorts, crossing her arms over her chest and cocking out a hip. “I had to play babysitter to three unruly brats.”

“Hey! We weren’t that bad!” Steve calls from the floor, sounding a little affronted. “All things considered, I’d say we were extremely well-behaved.”

“Oh yeah? I distinctly remember you making some not-so-nice remarks to Danny about his height,” Kono reminds him, frowning. “Which is bad considering I’d asked you _nicely_ not to start any fights.”

“It wasn’t a fight—“

“Steve, you guys fought practically _all day_ , don’t even.”

“It’s true, I kind of remember you guys arguing,” Chin says, adjusting his position on the couch.

“You have nothing to say, ‘cuz, ok because you enabled half of it.”

Shocked, Chin splutters for a minute. “I did not!”

“The hell you _didn’t_ ,” Danny supplies from the edge of the living room, Grace balanced on his hip. “You corroborated my story about this being Steve’s fault.”

Chin opens and closes his mouth for a second, before huffing a breath in indignation. There is quiet for a moment before Kono claps her hands and gathers her things.

“If that will be all, gentlemen, I’ll be heading home now.”

“Whoa, you’re just gonna leave? How’re we supposed to get home?” Danny demanded, gesturing between himself, Grace, and Chin.

“You’re all big boys now, I think you can figure it out. Oh, and be expecting a bill of expenses when you get back to HQ. I’m charging you fools double my hourly rate.”

No sooner are the words out that she’s gone, in the car and on her way home. Steve, Danny, and Chin regard each other for a moment before migrating to the kitchen. Danny jabs a finger into Steve’s chest, a scowl on his face.

“For the record, you really are a moron, doofus.”

“Danny, do me a huge favor and _shut up_.”

-FIN-  



End file.
